


Old Joy

by HolmesApothecary



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Introspection, M/M, Pre-SC Patrick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:34:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22311829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolmesApothecary/pseuds/HolmesApothecary
Summary: He packs up his car on a Saturday morning before anyone is awake.He unpacks it Saturday evening.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 26
Kudos: 146





	Old Joy

**Author's Note:**

> Title and inspiration come from the song [Old Joy by Noah and the Whale](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpkgGplvpnU). It's safe to assume that is the song Patrick is playing on the piano.
> 
> Thanks to Beth for giving this the once over. And thanks to Patrick for once again being too loud in my head and demanding I write.

He packs up his car on a Saturday morning before anyone is awake. 

He unpacks it Saturday evening.

The thing about leaving your whole life behind, of getting a fresh start, is that it is daunting. Not in the unknown, the possibility, but the known—it’s scary to leave behind what you know is nice, even, comfortable. The trust that if you wake up every day and live this exact life, things will be okay. 

But okay was no longer good enough for Patrick. There was more in the world to be found than okay. 

And that was terrifying. 

So he unpacks the car and stays another day.

***

If his parents notice (and they do), they don’t say. They’ve hesitantly given him space ever since he showed up on their doorstep two weeks ago, suitcases in hand. They ask about Rachel and as he tells them the wedding is off, Clint gives Marcy a look behind Patrick’s back—half resigned and half a bit exasperated. This has happened before and again before that. 

Yet, there was something to the set of her son’s shoulders, something in the sadness of his tone that seems different, that wasn’t there any of the other times. It’s more solid. Patrick is determined, resolute. The stubborn boy she thought was gone, making himself known. So, she just hugs him, holds on tight, because she feels it in her bones she won’t have the opportunity again for some time. 

***

He packs the car again on a Tuesday afternoon after he comes home from work.

His boss was not happy Patrick was leaving. Patrick finds for maybe the first time in his life, he doesn’t care. When did he stop feeling things, he wonders as he stares at the full car. When did the joy and excitement and even anger leave him for just okay? He doesn’t know…

It’s a lie, he does know. Knows that every time he wondered, questioned, or pushed aside, he also tamped down those emotions. Each left behind “what if” took a little bit of feeling, of emotion with it. Bottled them up deep inside with all the things that were not this conventional, steady life. 

And now he can’t for the life of him remember why he would do that.

***

He left Rachel on a Thursday morning. The night before, she had been out with friends, and he had sat at the neglected piano. At first just to practice, something to do. But practice led to playing, led to a song stuck in his head. Chords that had been haunting him for weeks, words that had echoed in his head. 

He worked the song until it felt right, felt more right than anything else he’d ever done in this apartment. 

And when he sang out into the quiet of the apartment about not wanting what you have, it clicked. It unlocked something, something so obvious that it was suddenly so easy. The what-ifs...just were. This was him. Patrick took the first unincumbered breath he’d taken in years and said to the empty room, “I’m gay.” 

For the first time, Patrick feels something approaching the person he was meant to be. 

***

The car remains packed but still, he doesn’t leave. 

Knowing who you are at 31 doesn’t suddenly make you spontaneous. He’s afraid he’s just running away (he is in a way). Not facing his parents or Rachel, escaping in a whole new way. 

But it also doesn’t feel like that at all. It’s like he’s waiting for something, waiting for the thing that will point him in the right direction. Something that says, “Yes, this is where you are meant to be, Patrick Brewer.” 

So he waits.

***

He leaves on a Sunday morning, hugging his parents and heading west on the 401. An email lead on a job from a business school friend titled, “Placeholder work?” helping him decide that maybe he could wait for a sign while dipping his toes a little further away. A tiny town—the space to reset—as he plots his next move, next life. As he waits for the real sign. 

He drives away and feels the weight dropping from his shoulders the further away from home he gets. Lets the worry stay back in his hometown. This, he decides, will be his chance to lean in and embrace the future. The past is just that, the past. He’s looking forward from now on. 

***

He packs his hiking pack on a Tuesday morning. Last night, skin prickling with...something, anticipation, the need to move, inspired him to look up nearby day hikes. Ever since he put his hand in David Rose’s hand yesterday morning, he’s felt the need to go, to take action. Not running away but rather feeling more like running towards….what he isn’t sure of just yet. 

So he marches himself up a mountain. And then again the next day and the next. Day after day as he claims his place as a business partner, as a friend, as maybe something more. Marches right up that rocky path and through his feelings. Until one day he stands at the top and looks out over the valley and realizes he just _feels_. Joy and hope and excitement. Nerves and confusion too but not fear. Feeling after feeling that he thought he’d lost to just okay are here with him on this mountain, in the store, in David’s tentative smiles. 

And Patrick suddenly knows what it is to feel just right. 

***

They pack the car on a Friday after closing early. Patrick places their bags in the trunk and thinks of the last time he packed this car, the fear he felt at leaving the comfortable life he knew. The lack of emotions he felt at everything. Those numb feelings didn’t follow him here. He hasn't felt that way for years now. He’s found that being known, really known, took leaving safe and comfortable behind. 

A warm palm lands between his shoulder blades. He can just feel four rings pressing into his skin through his t-shirt. 

“Did I reign it in enough?” David teases.

“Hmmm, made it on the first try.”

They’re heading back east on the road that brought him here. Back to his hometown for a visit from this place he planned to wait for a sign and instead somehow planted roots. David is nervous but excited. Eager to see where Patrick grew up, but hoping he isn’t too much. Patrick can’t express enough how he cannot wait to see David in all his loud, expressive glory in that town that once seemed okay, comfortable, quiet. Can’t wait to feel the loud, too big for his body feelings he has for David in that town he once felt so indifferent in. 

Can’t wait for the rest of their beautiful, ever-changing, over the top life. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr at [HolmesApothecary](https://holmesapothecary.tumblr.com/).


End file.
